Swallowtail
Background A dark-skinned girl with elaborately beaded bleached hair sits staring with large blue eyes. Her shoulders, breasts and belly are scarred with a series of tiny incisions and whorls, which together form curious patterns. Her warm smile is a flash of white in her angular face, and her unashamed nudity is not so much a statement of any kind but a matter of comfort. Her face is not pretty, but it holds an exotic beauty. Swallow's Tail was born in the Stranglethorn Vale to a small and reclusive tribe of humans who make the jungle their home. Named traditionally after the first thing her mother saw upon delivering her, Swallow was raised collectively by the village, and did not know mother or father, but instead a communal duty to her people as a whole. Given the option upon reaching puberty of taking the path of a mother to the village, or a warrior for the village, Swallow chose the latter path, believing implicitly in the spirits of her people, and the path she hoped lay before her to glory. By the time she was fifteen, the young warrior had excelled among her peers, hunting down and fighting tigers, raptors and crocolisks, and studying the ways of axe and club with a fierce determination. She won top honours at the gathering of tribes, and was given the scarification to lend her strength, fertility, speed and good health. Though others may look askance at the elaborate patterns of scars, Swallow considers them marks of beauty and pride to this day. She was well on her way to becoming one of the most skillful and renowned warriors of a culture with little to no contact with the outside world, and no true enemies save the jungle trolls, when the young savage saw some pale skinned Northerners practicing duelling techniques in the Gurubashi Arena, and became aware that there were whole forms of combat she knew nothing about, and was unable to defend against. The Eclipsed Sun The Northerners Swallow saw were the elite of a group devoted to the unwholesome plan to take over the world for their dark lord, Ythfas Vinguld. Swallow journeyed north to find these skillful fighters, and met one upon reaching the terrifyingly open fields of Elwynn Forest: Altamira, thee right hand warlock to the Master of the Eclipsed Sun. Altamira examined the young savage, and decided she'd make a good warrior-slave to the Eclipsed Sun in their new home, a Tower far to the north. The Valewoman was quite contented at her new status, as her people traditionally considered all warriors to be the slaves to their village, and unable to make decisions themselves lest their trained tempers and skills cause problems. Swallow accompanied Altamira to the Tower, and met the warlock Ythfas for the first time. She was set to study combat with a fallen paladin named Altena, who along with Altamira made an effort to bed the young warrior. Swallow, from a culture unused to such same-sex pairings, was unreceptive and confused, and both women left her be, choosing instead to train her to be a better fighter. Swallow was largely without any moral compass, and happy to learn whatever the Eclipsed Sun would teach her of combat and fighting, eagerly sparring with Altena in the Tower regularly. When she was not practicing, she carved beads for her hair to ward off evil spirits, or put herself in a shamanistic trance with her small beaded hand drum. Ythfas It was during the latter activity that Swallow's life took an unstoppable turn, never to return to what it had been. The Master of the Eclipsed Sun, Ythfas Vinguld, was a troubled and dark man who customarily only slept after drinking to excess and taking a bedmate from the women of his Tower; usually Lirel, a twisted night elf/construct hybrid, or Evera, a confused and complex young huntress. His urge to hide his inner torment in sex or drink gave him a hunger for new things, and one evening, in Swallow's drumming by the hearth, he felt a sense of peace which paradoxically enraged him, and made him command the young savage to his chambers to entertain him that night. So did the love affair which would completely change Swallow begin - in a violent and unloving act high above the Northern Lordaeron coastline, far from her home. Ythfas had the young human attend him many times after, and began to spend time with her, for unlike most others, she did not judge his actions, and thought little of what he did - it was simply what happened, and she could tolerate pain aplenty without comment, she felt. Instead, she offered him her friendship and loyalty, without coercion, and on a windswept beach north of Steamwheedle Port one evening, Ythfas finally wept out his hurt for his long-lost beloved Visasti Sunstrider on Swallow's dark shoulder. In that moment, the two came to some peaceable resolution, and Ythfas no longer commanded Swallow to mount the long twisting flight of stairs to his chambers at night. Instead, Ythfas took their friendship and the his marginal release of emotions to help him to love a cold and distant elf, Aktarin Shadowsong. Recognizing that despite his love for the elf, he still desired offspring, and with Aktarin's blessing, that she might watch over his line, Ythfas had to choose a paramour with whom he might finally continue his family's lineage. He wavered between the paladin Shadowguard Altena, and the savage Swallowtail, and finally chose the latter on the basis that she had known no man but him, and thus his paternity could be without question of any of her issue. He bade the warrior swear to touch no man but him, and she willingly agreed. It was then that Ythfas and Swallow returned together to his high chamber, and Ythfas began to find comfort in her embrace, and worked to teach her the meaning of love as his own icy heart thawed beside her. He vowed to the young warrior to share his bed with no other, and for a time, they ceased to be master and servant, or bound concubine and warlock, but became true lovers. Sul'Thraze During her growing recognition of love, and her awakening to delight in her beloved Ythfas's arms, Swallow continued to follow a path she believed was her destiny, guided by a strange blue parrot who spoke in a cracked old woman's voice to her: Owaissa, a bird-spirit from her homeland. Swallow believed that she was to become a weapon against trolls, as her people had fought trolls above all else in their long hiding in the Vale. She battled devotees of Hakkar at the Sunken Temple of Atal'Hakkar, and then fought the Sandfury at Zul'Farrak in Tanaris. It was at the latter location that the shamanistic warrior discovered the agent of her eventual doom: a fragmented, broken sword. Half of the legendary runesword of the Sandfury, Sul'Thraze the Lasher. Infused with a malign and sentient spirit, Sul'Thraze was the weapon which nearly prevented non-trollish settlement in the desert for centuries. Believing her spiritual strength sufficient to control the evil weapon, Swallow confidently rebuilt it, and with the sword's willing assistance, decided she was undoubtedly its mistress, and could use it against its creators. Instead, Sul'Thraze began a slow erosion of Ythfas and Swallow's relationship, determining in its evil intelligence that the warlock was the weak place in the young warrior's armour, and if it could encourage his downfall, Swallow too would be destroyed, freeing the weapon once more to return to trollish hands. Visiting Ythfas in dreams, the Lasher encouraged him to revel in his old games of sadomasochism which he'd learned beside Visasti. From golden love, the two humans began to find their time together becoming a nightmare, as Ythfas woke with hungers he could not control, and his now-pregnant lover found herself waking beside a fiend incarnate who hungered for agony. Ythfas swore to Swallow he'd never permit himself to hurt her, and fought for control of himself. However, the sword's work was well done, for in his breast had woken the old hungers he'd once revelled in, and he began to torture slaves in the Tower. Ishkoodah Ythfas and Swallow's first child was born. Ishkoodah, named by her father Yshka after his family line. The little girl was born with the assistance of the priest Sabetta of the Eclipsed Sun, and as she was born, Swallow called out to the spirits to help this child of two worlds to find her path. The spirits answered, and a wonder-filled Ythfas and a tired Swallow had only a handful of days with their newborn child before they found themselves presented with an adolescent girl, given a span of years by the spirits and the Earthmother, for reasons neither could fathom. Swallow meanwhile attempted to train as a shaman, believing that to be the path she should take in order to strengthen her failing ability to control the sword she'd so rashly reconstructed. She and Ythfas continued as lovers, finding solace in one another's arms, and for the time being, the trio seemed happy enough, with Ishkoodah studying shamanism as her mother did, and wielding arcane energies as her father once had. Ythane As fertile as her people might wish, Swallow soon conceived again to her tender lover. Though Ythfas thus far maintained his promise not to hurt her, his own hunger for blood was secretely growing into a force he was barely able to control, and it was then that Swallow, formerly unaware of how her beloved was controlling his sadism, discovered Ythfas torturing a slave while he thought she was asleep. The savage chose a side for morality for the first time in her life, and interfered in Ythfas' play, snapping the slave's neck as a merciful act. Furious at his lover's involvement, and angered by his feeling of guilt, Ythfas demanded an explanation of Swallow, who instead fled his wrath lest he be forced to break the promise he'd made. Unfortunately, driven by the Lasher he unwisely took up from where the sword stood in their room, Ythfas hunted down his lover in Mulgore where she studied shamanism, and once more demanded an explanation. Swallow attempted to reason with him, but failed against his rising madness and bloodlust, inflamed by the trollish artifact he clutched in one hand. The unthinkable happened, and Ythfas broke his promise to Swallow when she whispered for him to do what he intended to, giving him her forgiveness before his actions could take that gift from her. The warlock brutally beat and raped Swallow, and nearly killed her - all that stopped him was the sure knowledge that she was pregnant with their second child. Once he was finished, Ythfas left Swallow, fleeing in his tormented guilt from what he had done. Swallow's shaman teacher, the Tauren Graytongue, found her there and ministered to her, and agreed with the young warrior that for the sake of her unborn son, there was only one course which would prevent Ythfas from completing what he had nearly done, and damning himself utterly for killing his own child. The shaman and his student found Swallow's closest friend, a sweet-natured Tauren named Minihaha or Laughing Water, and she agreed to become the recipient of a human child. Using all the magic each possessed, they successfully performed a crude embryo transfer, and Swallow exulted despite how close she'd come in the process again to death, for now Ythfas could not damn himself in his insanity. Despite her hopes, Swallow's actions there in Mulgore were in fact as unwise as her initially having taken up the sentient weapon, and when her rueful lover returned to her, hoping to work with her to solve his sadism, he discovered to his utter horror that his faithful savage love had placed his firstborn son in what he shouted at her was an animal's body. Shocked to her core by Ythfas's fury, Swallow falteringly attempted to explain, only to be cast aside by the enraged nobleman, who declared her anathema, and told her that she'd be sent to the slave breeding pits should she return to the Tower and him. Ythfas left, and sent his minion Bolis to hunt down Swallow and either kill her or return with her for this punishment, but Bolis disobeyed his master, and instead found Swallow being ministered to by the human priestess Gardenia, who sought to deal with shock and exposure after the young savage weepingly tried to suicide with the loss of the only man she loved. Bolis and Gardenia ferociously defended Swallow when Ythfas arrived to kill her, and finally, the warlock forgave his lover for the crime he felt she'd committed in giving their child to the Tauren. He commanded her to fetch Laughing Water to the Tower, threatening otherwise to use a necromantic compass he'd fashioned form his own bone and blood to track his son, though Swallow, suspicious of him for the first time after what had happened in Mulgore, demanded proof that he would not hurt the generous Tauren girl. Ythfas had intended to keep her confined, but grudgingly agreed to permit her free rein. After a fight, Ythfas also agreed to destroy the foul compass in return for willing obedience in Swallow and in the Tauren whose generosity and kindness had landed her in such difficulty with a Northern human warlock. Ythfas's Disappearance Unfortunately, the spiralling of events had driven Ythfas more than a little mad, and he vanished one day into the wilds of Lordaeron, driven by the demons which haunted him from his past. After he did not return, Swallow accompanied Laughing Water back to Mulgore, and tried to stay there and rebuild the fragments of her world. Unfortunately, she took Sul'Thraze, still unaware of how much the sword had done to harm her, and believing that her shamanistic rituals had bound the sword safely. The Lasher Redux Haunted by a belief that she'd utterly failed the man she loved, Swallow began to despair of ever seeing him again. Her nights filled with hideous dreams which relived his brutalization of her on the plateau in Mulgore, and again and again, she saw her lover's face distorted by rage, hatred and lust with the whispered refrain that she had failed him and herself completely. Sleepless, Swallow finally entered the insanity which the Lasher had been guiding her toward, and fell into rage and despair mingled. She attempted to die at the hands of Tamlin Ohtar, but failed when he regained control of his temper despite her best efforts. Aradhel Shar'alah and the final doom of Sul'Thraze Six months after Ythfas's sudden departure, Swallow wandered like a raving madwoman through the alleys of Stormwind, and accidentally encountered Tarokk Isera'Duna, an old friend and a fellow warrior, whom she was unable to recognize, merely reacting to his masculinity with hostile fury, driven by her unceasing nightmares of Ythfas at his worst. Tarokk, recognizing firstly that his young friend was quite literally out of her mind, and secondly that the dully pulsing black sword she held was somehow connected, wisely called for help, sending for the ancient Kal'dorei Blademaster Aradhel Shar'alah. Aradhel arrived where Tarokk held Swallow in relative safety, though the maddened young savage only believed herself trapped, and was fighting with desperation to free herself against a far calmer and more skilled combatant. The towering Blademaster managed through sheer force of will, persuasion, and a heady dose of blatant threats to force Swallow to drop the sword, and Aradhel took up the Lasher, sealing the sentient weapon to ownership by one who could not be swayed in the slightest. Freed from the compulsion of Sul'Thraze, Swallow collapsed, sunken wholly into blackest despair at her compounded failure as a lover, a shaman, and as a person. She begged Aradhel to kill her, and instead, Aradhel accepted her indenture as a slave and student, commanding her first to straighten herself and begin to recover the pride she'd once borne so easily. Thus began the slow ascent from the dark place Swallow had entered, and as she gradually found herself again under the gentle and nonetheless firm guidance of her new mentor, the young human realized that in Aradhel she had found a true friend and above all, a teacher. It begame apparent also that Aradhel desired Swallow for a lover as well as the rest, and wished nothing more than for Swallow to grow enough as a person to accept her freedom from slavery, and her strength as a warrior. Unable yet to reach that place, Swallow instead focused on her infant son and her friendship with the Tauren, finding herself surrounded by warm love, yet still tormented by the loss of the only genuine passion she'd felt for another person with Ythfas's continued absence. Finally, that too began to pass, and while Swallow mourned her vanished lover, she was able to accept Aradhel's careful advances, and became the lover of the old elf. Ythfas's Return It was in this relative peace that Swallow and her mentor emerged from the Blood Furnace of Hellfire Citadel, sweaty from a training exercise which had seen Swallow defeat the orcish warlock with Aradhel's shouts guiding her swings and skilled use of her weapons. Walking together, the warrior froze as she saw coming toward her the very face of her beloved Ythfas, thin and haggard from his long journeys and efforts as a necromancer in the wilds of Lordaeron, but decidedly still the man who had so utterly captured young Swallow's heart. Torn between Aradhel and Ythfas, and her love for each, Swallow found herself unable to choose one over the other, despite both urging her to do so. In Ythfas she had the man who had awoken her to love, motherhood, and hatred along with joy, and in Aradhel she had the steady mentor and caring partner she'd always craved. Each drew her, yet sufficiently differently that the girl was paralyzed by her longing for both, and in a gesture of utmost torment, she drew Sul'Thraze from Aradhel's back-sheath when ordered to by each of her loves, and rather than command the blade as directed to (thus demonstrating her sanity), Swallow neatly sliced off her left hand, crying out that it was easier to sever a part of her own body than it was to choose which of her lovers she could go with. Both reacted instantly, holding the severed flesh to the wound and forcing healing potions down the sobbing Valewoman's throat. Ythfas took his leave, and Swallow remained with her Kal'dorei mentor and lover, her agony returned full force by the re-appearance of a man she'd almost considered dead. Swallow's Decision Though her body was healed of the harm she'd inflicted, Swallow's heart was torn, and she finally stole a gryphon from where she was ostensibly resting, and urged it to fly her to the terribly familiar Tower she'd left months prior. Though she did not know it, Aradhel watched the young warrior fly, and gave her beloved student and lover the time to truly resolve the dilemma she'd found herself in. At the Tower, Ythfas and Swallow made love once more before he sorrowingly sent her back to Aradhel; both weeping, both aching that it should not be so, and that the past might not have unwoven as it had. Ythfas confessed his genuine love for the warrior he'd so utterly changed, and begged her forgiveness not only of what had happened in Mulgore, but of his departure. It might have ended there had it not been for their son Ythane, and Ythfas's need for an heir. The Tower of Secrets Her decision made for her by Ythfas, Swallow tried to recapture the tenuous peace she'd found before the fateful meeting at Hellfire. Instead, her life grew more complex yet when Ythfas belatedly recalled a bargain they'd struck before Ythane's birth, where the boy would spend time with the Tauren during the summers, and the winters with his father at the Tower on the coast of Lordaeron. Still suspicious, Swallow made the choice at last, and chose to accompany her infant son to his father's home, to ensure he be protected and secure. Once she was there, the two lovers attempted to relive the golden days of the year before, and Swallow slept either in Ythfas's bed, or in a room her daughter Ishkoodah had evidently abandoned in order to follow her own destiny. Swallow realized all too late that her own descent into madness had estranged her from her first daughter, but tried to respect Ishkoodah's choice to sail the Southern Seas as a freebooter and pirate. The days passed relatively sanely, though Ythfas refused to recognize Swallow as more than Aradhel's slave, and found himself increasingly unable to tolerate his love for anyone who did not belong to him body and soul. Thienna A nail was driven into their wilting love for one another when after impassioned lovemaking in the Stranglethorn Vale, Ythfas confessed to Swallow that he'd decided to marry an elf who'd recently come to the Tower to be his pleasure-slave, one Thienna. The elf had, he explained, bound him into agreeing to her demand for a marriage, and if he broke his word, he would be an oathbreaker. He explained that despite his love for Swallow, he would have to marry Thienna, and once again, Swallow would be his mistress. Swallow had once tolerated Ythfas's consideration of her as a bound concubine, but now found herself feeling marginalized by once again being passed over by Ythfas in favour of an elf, despite having given him so much. Even with this, Swallow tried to be friendly with Thienna, though she bluntly refused to accept gifts the elf offered her son, fearing that Ythfas would make Thienna into Ythane's mother somehow, and that the only thing Swallow had left of her lover would be taken from her and given to another. Another nail entered when Ythfas's hated father, the undead Marquis Ythgar Vinguld, a vengeful fiend made flesh, threatened to kill Ythane and Ishkoodah unless Ythfas called off his marriage, evidently hoping that by threatening something Ythfas loved, his son would relent. Outraged, Ythfas ordered his minion Winterlock to find Ishkoodah and bring her to the Tower for safety, and Swallow discovered her teenaged daughter swinging drugged from the rogue's back one winter morning. Enraged that Ythfas would violate his firstborn's rights so uncaringly, and as savage as a mother tiger with threatened cubs, Swallow found herself roaring with rage at the man she'd once sworn to obey, and for whom she'd willingly given up nearly everything. Shortly afterward, all but a fragment of the love Swallow had held vanished when Ythfas decided to use the compass he'd sworn was destroyed months earlier in order to track and kill his father at last. The revelation that the warlock had lied to her was almost too much for the passionate warrior, who demanded that Ythfas destroy the compass before her eyes, and swore that she would find and destroy the man who dared threaten her beloved children. Ythfas did so, and Swallow set off to fight an undead nobleman. Ythgar Vinguld Swallow tracked Ythgar for nearly three weeks, losing her beloved bird Owaissa in the process to the undead fiend's spells. She confronted him in a wooden cabin in southeastern Lordaeron, and discovered something she could not fight when she pushed open the door: the Marquis of Vinguld's eyes were an unholy glowing green - the same hue almost as the eyes of the nightmare Ythfas Sul'Thraze had spent months tormenting Swallow with. His face was enough like his son's that when the warrior shoved open the door to fight, she was held for a few moments by simple shock and horror at seeing what she took to be her worst nightmares embodied. The pause was enough for the undead monster to begin to speak to her, and while Swallow was a ferocious fighter, she was easily swayed by the wiles of an intensely charismatic and intelligent old monster wearing a face so like the one she'd loved and feared for so long. She agreed that she would make her lover swear an oath not to wed Thienna, thus completing the goal the nobleman required, and safeguarding the children. In return, Swallow would fulfill her own promise by beheading the old nobleman and carrying his gory head in to be presented to his son. All Swallow had to do upon completing this task was crush a curious purple stone he gave her, and the deal would be done. Return to the Tower Swallow did as she was told, believing it the only solution to all their problems. She would be saving her children, and ensuring their continued safety by removing the monster's reason for attempting to harm her lover. On a more personal level, she would also hopefully be elevating herself, and preventing Thienna was taking her beloved Ythane from her through some Northerner trick. Sadly, as often the case for Swallow, the plan did not go as she'd hoped. She presented the head of the old Marquis to his son after beheading him on the rocks before the Tower, and with tears of gratitude, Ythfas swore to do whatever Swallow asked. When she revealed that she did not wish him to marry the blood elf Thienna, Ythfas was outraged that she'd dared to ask such a thing of him, but was confined by his reckless promise to give her her will. When she crushed the stone and was shocked to see the old undead monster laughing outside, and tossing his signet to his son before stepping from the rocks into the cold Northern ocean, Ythfas exploded with fury. Swallow in his eyes had betrayed him and sided with his evil father, and no explanation she could offer would mollify the furious warlock. He had their bed dragged out to the dock and pushed into the Northern Sea, thus preventing her from ever sharing the bed he'd promised to only ever permit her into, and he cast her from his sight forever. Hurt beyond words, and stricken to the core that all she'd tried to do was for naught, and that her efforts to prevent her children from ever being threatened again were perceived as traitorous, Swallow tearfully bade a final farewell to the warlock noble who had betrayed her as fully as he felt she had betrayed him. She took her son with her, and without Ythfas's knowledge, took a second daughter in her womb which he never learned she'd even conceived. Ishkoodah also left to return to her piracy to the South, and has remained out of contact with her mother. The Time Since Finally freed forever of the unthinking love she'd felt for Ythfas, Swallow experienced fear that the ruthless warlock would hunt her down for her theft of their son, and perhaps kill her as he'd once threatened to do. She therefore hid herself away in Aldor Rise in Shattrath City, with only Aradhel aware of her location. As months passed, Swallow was both relieved and obscurely disappointed by the fact that evidently as far as Ythfas was concerned, neither she nor his only son were of sufficient importance to hunt. She gave birth without incident, and she and Aradhel named her final child Nehanda Alayra. In a moment of renewal, Swallow renamed her son after the lion spirit of her people, calling Ythane Chaminuka foreverafter. Since then, Swallow's life has settled inordinatly. She now lives peacefully in Shattrath, her axes hung on the wall, her son eagerly listening to stories from the Vale or from the distant past when his other mother Aradhel comes to stay. Nehanda is a bright eyed, dark hair toddler who laughes frequently. The little family sometimes journeys to Mulgore to visit the Tauren who so lovingly accepted Swallow as a spiritual sister, and she rides the massive kodo they gave her as a gift by preference. She's come a long way from the young savage she left the Vale as, and though she has suffered terribly in the intervening years, and still deeply distrusts Northerners or nobles of any sort, Swallow has retired from her adventuring to become a happy mother, and looks forward to her beloved Aradhel's visits to their home. Category:Characters Category:Human Category:Alliance